What Causes Unplanned Scope Changes?

To better manage project changes and project risks, and to minimize the number of scope changes, it is important to understand the leading causes for unplanned scope changes on a project.

Shift in business drivers Due to the dynamic nature of the business world today, things can change quickly. These business changes can have an immediate impact on existing projects. Examples of business drivers that can alter a project's scope include

Available budget/funding for the project

New government regulations

Changing target market for the product

Time-to-market pressures

New business opportunities

Changing customer priorities

Unexpected market or world events

Shift in project acceptance criteria Addresses changes in either the targeted completion date, financial return on investments, client satisfaction ratings, quality levels, other expected benefits, or the stakeholders who need to approve.

Shift in technology With the move to shorter duration and phased projects, this is not as much of an issue as it has been in the past. However, there are still times when new technology becomes available during a project that will significantly meet the needs of the customer much better than what is currently planned.

Poor scope statement If the scope statement is incomplete, ambiguous, inconsistent with project assumptions, or does not address the complete business workflow process, you are much more likely to have project scope changes. Of course, this would only happen on projects that you inherited and would never happen on projects that you helped define. Right?

Poor requirements definition There are entire training courses on requirements definition and requirements management due to the importance they play on project success. Suffice to say, the more gaps that you have in your requirements, the more scope changes you are likely to have. For your awareness, here is a list of the leading reasons for poorly defined requirements:

Ineffective or wrong techniques used to gather requirements

Communication breakdowns between analysts and stakeholders

Requirements are not aligned with project scope

Requirements do not address complete process work flow

Documented requirements are not meaningful to targeted audience

Requirements not reviewed for inconsistencies

Requirements not verified for correctness and completeness

Missing stakeholders

Users signoff without a "real" understanding of what the documented requirements mean